Whether word-based or morpheme-based, the morphological literature in generative grammar (and beyond) is interested in productive word formation — i.e., derivation of open class categories, compounding, and, of course, inflection. While that includes functional morphemes, or corresponding word-formation rules, it almost always involves an open class stem. This book, by contrast, is an investigation of regularities in the internal structure of a set of function words, the determiners. With an emphasis on West Germanic and an occasional broadening of the empirical domain, the book discusses demonstratives, distributive quantifiers, interrogative, negative, and possessive determiners. The core finding is that there are striking regularities regarding the internal structure of these different kinds of determiners. In fact, what has long been assumed without much argument or explanation, namely that determiners are adjectival, is shown and explained here in detail. It turns out that determiners are entire extended adjectival projections, xAPs, with a lexical layer, an inflection layer, and a left periphery, all part of what (sometimes) appear to be function words. The book proposes that determiners are xAPs with a closed class minimal stem. The second focus of this book is on adjectival inflection in German, which the Book divides into two subdomains, both of which receive a radically novel analysis: (a) The weak/strong agreement contrast is treated in terms of adjective movement akin to verb movement in the clause, and (b) the syncretisms in dative and genitive morphology are related to each form’s idiosyncratic syntax in a way that makes the syncretism patterns dissolve in epiphenomeny.Less

The Architecture of Determiners

Thomas Leu

Published in print: 2014-12-19

Whether word-based or morpheme-based, the morphological literature in generative grammar (and beyond) is interested in productive word formation — i.e., derivation of open class categories, compounding, and, of course, inflection. While that includes functional morphemes, or corresponding word-formation rules, it almost always involves an open class stem. This book, by contrast, is an investigation of regularities in the internal structure of a set of function words, the determiners. With an emphasis on West Germanic and an occasional broadening of the empirical domain, the book discusses demonstratives, distributive quantifiers, interrogative, negative, and possessive determiners. The core finding is that there are striking regularities regarding the internal structure of these different kinds of determiners. In fact, what has long been assumed without much argument or explanation, namely that determiners are adjectival, is shown and explained here in detail. It turns out that determiners are entire extended adjectival projections, xAPs, with a lexical layer, an inflection layer, and a left periphery, all part of what (sometimes) appear to be function words. The book proposes that determiners are xAPs with a closed class minimal stem. The second focus of this book is on adjectival inflection in German, which the Book divides into two subdomains, both of which receive a radically novel analysis: (a) The weak/strong agreement contrast is treated in terms of adjective movement akin to verb movement in the clause, and (b) the syncretisms in dative and genitive morphology are related to each form’s idiosyncratic syntax in a way that makes the syncretism patterns dissolve in epiphenomeny.